“Dwight (Howard) and I are the cornerstones of the Rockets,” said Harden. “The rest of the guys are role players or pieces that complete our team. We’ve lost some pieces and added some pieces. I think we’ll be fine next season.”

We’ll see how Harden feels about role players being easily interchangeable in January after playing a few months with Trevor Ariza rather than Parsons, with Isaiah Canaan as the backup point guard for Patrick Beverley and not Jeremy Lin.

I’ll give Harden this, while the Rockets had a disappointing summer after striking out with Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, they are not really worse than last year. I don’t like their depth as much, but if Harden and Howard can grow a little together this is as good a team as last season, maybe even a little better. Problem is that’s not enough to get the Rockets past the Spurs, Thunder and Clippers, maybe not even an improved Mavericks team.

A day after the Rockets completed play in the Las Vegas Summer League, the Rockets expected the signing of Johnson to be imminent, a person with knowledge of their talks said. Johnson will sign a three-year deal.

Second-round pick Alessandro Gentile is expected to remain in Europe for at least another season.

I wouldn’t the take the reported salary as gospel. That’s 100 percent of scale, and nearly every first-rounder signs for 120 percent of scale. Perhaps, the Rockets gave Capela a lower contract because they’re handling his buyout, but it’s also possible, given the wording, Spears is assuming the wrong numbers.

Johnson showed some promise during uneven summer-league play, and the undersized shooting guard from Arizona could carve out an NBA role. He’s not ready yet, though.

“It’s allowed me to see things before they happen, put guys in position, kind of read my teammates, knowing who is out of rhythm, who is in rhythm, knowing the score, the time, who has it going on the other end, knowing their likes and dislikes and being able to calibrate all that into a game situation,” James says. “That’s very challenging, but it comes natural. It can help your team out.”

Sometimes, these traits get overblown. I’m sure LeBron sees the floor very well, but many NBA players see the floor very well. Can we, as non-elite basketball players, really distinguish between what LeBron does and what others do?

Chris Bosh, via Windhorst, provides perspective:

“Look, we’re all professional basketball players, so when LeBron remembers something from a basketball game, even if it’s from a few years ago, it doesn’t exactly blow me away,” Bosh says. “But it’s when he remembers other stuff, like stuff he shouldn’t even know, where you’re like, ‘What?!’ We’ll be watching a football game and he’ll be like, ‘Yeah, that cornerback was taken in the fourth round of the 2008 draft from Central Florida,’ or something. And I’ll be like, ‘How do you know that?’ And he’ll be like, ‘I can’t help it.'”

Of course, there are drawbacks to LeBron’s mental approach. Sometimes, he thinks too much as his mind is flooded with memories:

It’s June 2013, and James is riding back to the team hotel after Game 3 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio, with the Spurs having crushed the Heat by 36 points to take a 2-1 series lead. James was 7-of-21 shooting this night and in the midst of a poor Finals performance. Over the first three games, he was shooting just 38 percent and averaging 16.6 points, stunningly low numbers after what has been inarguably the finest season of his career. On the bus, he turns and confides to a friend.

“I’m thinking too much,” James says, “about 2007.”

I suggest you read Windhorst’s full article if you’re interested in learning more about this underexposed aspect of LeBron’s greatness.

Miami did not expect LeBron James to leave. Four years, four trips to the Finals, a winning culture, both the front office and other players thought LeBron would be back.

But such is the lure of home (and a younger team on the rise, and an organization where he and his guys have more power than Pat Riley’s Miami, there were a lot of factors here). LeBron has made his decision and the Heat have moved on with a Chris Bosh/Luol Deng/Josh McRoberts/Dwyane Wade roster that should do fairly well. Mario Chalmers is back, too, and will probably get yelled at less frequently.

Chalmers said he was shocked to see James return to Cleveland after four seasons in Miami. The two have spoken since, with Chalmers wishing well his former teammate. He was among the closest players to James.

“We were surprised,” Chalmers said. “I never thought anybody would want to leave Miami for Cleveland but you grow up and you move on. That’s what happened and there’s no love lost.”

I think that was part of the shock for Heat fans — who would want to leave Miami? Warm weather, great lifestyle, no state taxes. This is a place people come to, not leave (at least that’s how people in Miami see it, you can certainly call that attitude arrogant if you want). Again, such is the power of home to overcome other issues. Plus LeBron wanted to restore his legacy and saw this as a route to that.

The Rockets have had a terrible offseason, especially when considering what their hopes were entering free agency.

Houston had planned to attract a third top flight star to play alongside Dwight Howard and James Harden, but overtures to Carmelo Anthony and then later Chris Bosh were essentially ignored, leaving the team in a worse place now than when the summer began.

It becomes even tougher to swallow for the Rockets once you realize that key rotation players in Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik were traded for essentially nothing, and Chandler Parsons was allowed to leave in restricted free agency by signing an offer sheet in Dallas that Houston did not choose to match.

Any reasonable observer knows that the Rockets took one or more steps backward this offseason, even when including the signing of Trevor Ariza at a reasonable price for his two-way skill set. But Howard doesn’t necessarily think so, and is either eternally optimistic or simply believes he’s good enough to cover for the team’s multiple mistakes.

“It won’t affect us at all,” Howard said Friday of Parsons signing a three-year, $45-million deal with the Dallas Mavericks. …

“We have myself and James,” Howard said. “We have the best center and the best two guard in the game on the same team. It’s on us.”

Howard, who spoke at his father’s 10th annual Howard/Howard basketball camp in Atlanta, said he wishes his former teammate well with the Mavericks. But Howard said he and Harden will be able to carry the load without the 25-year-old Parsons, who had career highs with 16.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and four assists for the Rockets last season.

Howard continues to take an unrealistic view about just how much he and Harden can do for the rest of the roster.

A better approach would have been the one taken by Rockets head coach Kevin McHale, who knows the team got worse this offseason, at least on paper. Displaying false bravado in essentially saying, ‘Nah, we’re good’ when losing a player who contributed as much as Parsons without getting anyone to replace him is not only ridiculous, but shows the level of delusion Howard has when it comes to the game of basketball.

As for the Rockets, fans care about winning and getting out of the first round of the playoffs more than they do about acquiring assets like “cap room” and “trade exceptions.” Houston has its two superstars, right Dwight? If that’s enough, then let’s see the team actually win some games in the postseason.